


ticket to ride

by starlight_sugar



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Disabled Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 03:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2492363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junior is learning to drive. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean there's anyone good to teach him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ticket to ride

**Author's Note:**

> for my awesome super lovely girlfriend [amanda.](http://the-coocoocachoo.tumblr.com) happy birthday, babe. you deserve nothing but the best. <3  
> this fic features two non-canonically disabled characters; if my portrayal is problematic or screwy in any way let me know and i will try to fix it up.

“Okay, but the thing is,” Tucker says, leaning across the counter, “I am a fucking terrible driver.”

“You don’t say,” Wash says drily, glancing out the front window of the coffee shop. Tucker follows his gaze and winces when he sees his own minivan, parked at a horrifying angle and taking up at least two - no, wait, three parking spaces. He turns back and scowls when he sees Wash smirking. What an asshole, laughing at Tucker for his laughably bad parking job.

“Point taken,” he mutters, but forges on. “So you think I, the worst driver in existence, should be allowed to teach a teenager to drive?”

“You’re his dad,” Wash points out. “It’s a dad thing to do.”

“I learned from my aunt’s ex-husband,” Tucker argues. “Extended family! Which is more or less what you are!”

It’s true, in a sideways sort of way. Tucker considers Church family after they were frat brothers in Beta Lambda Upsilon together, and since Wash is Church’s second cousin, that makes him more or less family too. Not quite as close as Tucker might want, of course, and their friends know it too after that time he was drunk enough to ask Church permission to bone his cousin, but hey. Wash doesn’t seem to know that story, and he’s good with Junior, and he lets Tucker dick around after-hours in his hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. What more could he want?

Well, sex, but. Not the point.

“I’ve been in three accidents in the last two years, do you really think I’m a good choice?” Wash rolls his eyes and goes into the storage room.

“You weren’t at fault in any of those!” Tucker yells after him, because it’s true. “What about your friends?”

“Do you trust them in a car with your child?” Wash calls back.

Tucker snorts. He’s seen all of Wash’s buddies drive. “Fuck, no,” he admits. “Except North, but he has-”

“The adoption thing to worry about, yeah,” Wash finishes, returning with two beers, caps already popped off. He hands one to Tucker, who nods his thanks and takes a long drink. “And I’d say ask Lina, but-”

“But your sister’s a fucking speed demon,” Tucker answers immediately. “C’mon, Wash, do me a solid. I’d hire someone, but.” He grimaces, and Wash nods understandingly.

It’s not that Tucker wouldn’t do anything for Junior. From the day he adopted a somewhat-traumatized nine-year-old Iranian boy, he’d been willing to move heaven and earth for the kid. But not everyone knows how to deal with a mute kid who lost most of his family. Hell, Tucker doesn’t know how he survived the last six years sometimes. He wants to do right by this kid.

“There’s gotta be someone else, right?” Wash asks, sounding like he’s considering it, and Tucker has to smother his laughter. “In your apartment building, with all those people, there’s gotta be someone you know and trust, right?”

Tucker snorts. “Boy, do I have some stories for you.”

.

“This is Sheila,” Caboose says solemnly, holding up a small video screen. Junior blinks at it and tilts his head questioningly. “She is not very good at conversations, but she will take you where you need to go.”

Junior narrows his eyes. He reaches for the pen and pad that Tucker keeps on the console so he can write, but Caboose pushes his hand back. “Both hands on the wheel, small Tucker!”

Junior looks pointedly down at the engaged parking brake and the gearshift set in park and the key not yet turned in the ignition, and back at a totally oblivious Caboose. “Now, Sheila is going to take us to the pet shelter so that I can get a dog!” He hits a button on the side of the screen, and it turns on to reveal a road map.

“Hello, Caboose!” a bright female voice says.

“Hello, Sheila!” Caboose exclaims. “Take us where the dogs are!”

Junior really needs driving hours, and also would be okay with going to see some dogs. These are the only reasons that he does not get out of the car.

.

“Alright, Junior,” Grif says, adjusting the passenger seat in his car. “Today we’re going to learn the fine art of waiting in the drive-thru.”

Junior just looks at him.

“What?” Grif protests. “Simmons is on a health kick, there’s nothing with carbs in our apartment, and you’re going to need to learn this at some point. You can pick where we go.”

Junior reaches for the pen. _In-N-Out?_ he writes hopefully.

“Fuck, yes,” Grif cheers. “Let’s go. And then I’ll teach you how to do donuts in the parking lot!”

.

Church and Tex both decline to give Junior driving lessons. Having seen Church ride the brakes and Tex reject their very existence, Junior is okay with that. Unfortunately, next on their list is Simmons.

“Before we start driving, I want to review road safety,” Simmons tells him. “I know you’re taking driver’s ed, and you passed your permit test, but because you’re not finished learning, we need to go over traffic laws, road signs, and driving etiquette.”

Junior looks from Simmons to the stack of papers on his coffee table to the printouts of traffic signs to Simmons again, who blinks placidly at him. That day, Junior learns what a roundabout is, which sign means “caution: falling rocks,” and about Simmons’s own miserable experience learning to drive. He makes a mental note to try Church again. It can’t be worse than this.

.

“Now, the signs might say speed limit,” Sarge says, “but really, they’re more of speed suggestions. They’re awfully slow! I like to double them, just to be safe.”

Junior gets out of the car.

.

Donut is probably Junior’s favorite person in their apartment building. He’s nice, and his med student boyfriend is nice, and he makes cookies, like, all the time, and he likes sharing them with Junior.

Also, Donut was at a train station that was bombed by religious extremists and walked away with nightmares and a permanent ring in his ears. On the days where Junior can’t shake fuzzy memories of being eight years old in Iran, he talks to Donut. Not to mention, he’s the only person other than Tucker who’s fluent in sign language, which is awesome.

“I don’t have a license,” Donut tells him apologetically, placing a bowl of flour on his counter. His voice is much louder than normal - no hearing aid today, then. “And Doc prefers taking the bus, he doesn’t even have a car. Sorry, kiddo.”

 _It’s okay,_ Junior signs back. He’s disappointed, but not surprised. _Might try Kai._

Donut blinks at him. _That’d be… fun,_ he signs back, but he’s making a face. Junior gets where he’s coming from. _Is there anyone else?_

Junior shrugs. _Tucker._

Donut laughs out loud at that. “Kiddo, your dad can’t drive,” he says. Junior grins at him, and he grins back. “You could always try Wash.”

 _Wash drives?_ Junior signs, in surprise. In retrospect he definitely remembers Wash being in a couple of car accidents, but Wash just… doesn’t drive, really.

“Mmhm.” Donut dumps some baking powder in with the flour. “He’s probably the best driver you know, he just prefers not to. He says he has bad luck with cars.”

Yep, Junior has heard Wash say that too. He waits till he’s sure Donut’s looking his way and signs, tentatively, _Would he?_

Donut smiles softly. “Aw, kiddo, Wash would do anything you asked him to.”

The part that goes unspoken is that it’s because Wash and Tucker are in the throes of the most epic unrequited love that any of them have ever seen - and considering that Junior is in high school, he considers that a noteworthy feat. And also, because Wash legitimately does care about Junior. He was the first person to ask what Junior’s birth name was. Wash is great. Junior wishes he’d bone Tucker already.

.

Still, he knows that Tucker would never ask Wash if he thought there was another option, so he gets with Kai to concoct a plan. She agrees immediately; Junior knows that it’s because if Tucker and Wash start dating this month, she wins the betting pool.

“Hiiiiiii, Verny!” she says brightly when Tucker comes to pick Junior up from his driving lesson with her. The top of her bright yellow convertible is rolled down, and the two of them are sitting on the hood together. “Junior and I had a lotta fun!”

“Don’t call me Verny,” Tucker says for at least the four thousandth time since he adopted Junior. “Had a good time, kid?”

Junior nods excitedly, and Kai grins. Time to make sure that Tucker stops going to the neighbors.

“I taught him something new!” Kai declares. “What do we say to the police, kid?”

And Junior proudly holds up his middle finger for the whole world to see. Kai cheers at Tucker’s stunned face. “That’s right! Fuck the cops!”

Very, very slowly, Tucker lowers his face into his hands.

.

“I’m your last resort?” Wash says amusedly, taking a drink of his beer. Tucker carefully does not follow the line of his throat as he swallows, because that would be weird.

“Three accidents, dude. I want my kid to be safe.” He shrugs. “But, I mean, you’re fuckin’ great with him. He loves you, and I -” shit shit shit _shit_ \- “also think you’re great.” Nailed it. “And you’d be better than literally any of those other assholes.”

Wash laughs at that, throaty and quiet, the way Tucker only hears when it’s just them in the shop. “Yeah, point taken. But I’m here all day tomorrow.”

“Night?” Tucker suggests. “Just take him out to a parking lot or something? I’ll make dinner while you guys are gone, it’ll be great. Make jambalaya, or some shit.”

“You can make jambalaya?”

“Dude, I make the best jambalaya outside of the Big Easy. You’ve gotta try it.”

Wash grins at him, a little shy and a little crooked, and if Tucker were braver than he is he would kiss him right now. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

.

It takes four more driving-lesson-dinners for Wash to realize that Tucker is sort of courting him, for Tucker to realize that he is sort of courting Wash, and for Junior to start planning on shoving them in a closet together or something. It’s only through a somewhat embarrassing marinara sauce accident that they figure it out, and Junior is grateful that he wasn’t in the apartment for that. All he knows is he gets upstairs and Tucker and Wash are making out. He would shriek in horror, if he could still make noise, but all he can do is flail his arms in front of his face. When it gets their attention, he signs _Dad, that’s gross,_ but he’s sorta grinning while he does it, and both Tucker and Wash are sorta grinning back.

It’s not until later that he realizes that he just called Tucker Dad for the first time ever. But he’s pretty okay with it. He likes his dad. It’s not a big slip.

Calling Wash Dad for the first time is a bigger deal, but, well. That’s a story for another day.

 


End file.
